Know That I
by Alephyr
Summary: "She comes like the thunderclap and leaves like the wind" - is this how a tragic love life is spotted from the very start? —Kurosaki Ichigo


Told myself I wasn't ever going to write anything to Chapter 686 canon-ish. Then this prompt plus the " _I Have Loved You_ " song turned all that around. Yikes.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert on Powerz Shizz and how the complicated stuff works in _Bleach_ so if anything sounds implausible, this is why.

Song in question: _I Have Loved You_ by Jessica Simpson

Initially posted and submitted for deathberryprompts tumblr's weekly prompt "shattered" on my tumblog (12 Sept 2016). Fixed formatting, edited and finalized for postage to AO3/FFnet.

* * *

Eyes cages colourless victory. The streak of valour has lost its' luster; fortitude dull and only returns as a blank slate and jagged.

Yet it is on his side who turns up on the winning end. For self's sake or the worlds' sakes? Won the battle or the war?

He does not know, yet. Just yet. 'Till he jabs his soul of steel into the earth, frayed bandages untying one wrap at a time near the hilt.

There lies no hallow; imperturbation; atmospheric dispassion, from the aftereffects at the war front, pressure suffocatingly thick.

Blood in his veins does not throb like it had when he won his grandeur battle against Byakuya that followed with a victory outcry and an idiotic grin on his face.

Dead exhausted face crashes into the ground next to his blade without a verbal sound, slipping into unconscious in the sea of aching numbness of his limp being.

Both was lost; neither gained naught a thing.

* * *

Ten days has passed since then and he is still under the Fourth Division's intensive care, one of many deeply wounded. He didn't have to be put under emergency care to foresee his survival at any point in the following days, or so he was told.

It had also been ten days since he's last seen Rukia, so when she visits, finally while he's awake, who's been discharged from her room and no longer had vice captain duties to keep her — he cracks the near heartfelt smile for the first time since the war's end only to be greeted with extensive pains shooting all throughout his body.

She notices his sudden grimaces, certainly, but he could not bring himself to tell her what has been on his mind, instead tells her he partially still couldn't quite make much sense of anything he's faced yet after being in a coma for about a week.

He is going to lose something integral to himself, he feels it with dread dripping like hot melted plastic down his spine, one bump at a time. His body shudders violently.

He could not quite place what more he has lost. It is suffocatingly thick like last time, except he feels as if he's been entombed this time and musk filled any open space to still him in place.

Ichigo guesses he is aware of the all-too-knowing expression graving on Rukia's face. Trying to figure what Soul Society and the Quincies like Ishida Uryuu have benefited from the bloodbath. The deaths to mourn; the losses to grieve; the sacrifices to embitter.

He promises he will tell her the other truth. Eventually.

But, the concerned grip on his bandaged hand makes it so hard to keep that.

* * *

 **(** _Remember that blue crystal sky_  
 _The sun reflected in your eyes_  
 _You kissed me unexpectedly_  
 _A moment I just can't forget_  
 _We filled the air with promises_ **)**

 _Trading sentimental smiles, earning a kick to the face when he couldn't get himself out of something stupid, chilling words that cleansed his soul of doubt and despair were all things that unexpectedly filled the hollowness of his heart—the one to split the rain clouds to the warm summer sky reaching on high in his inner world._

 _He had read Shakespeare one day ( or getting distracted while trying to ) shortly after he received his otherworldly powers back. Every other stanza of a prose would remind him and had him rethink in different ways on seeing Rukia again that one time ( or various occasions, really, just with the recent meeting being prominent he thought back to most often )._

 _Shakespeare was well-known for its' deep-rooted tragedies in his plays, comedies, historicals, dramas and romances were the other types. He tells himself as such, and each time, it gets harder to take his mind off the well-fitting words to describe the imaged memories he has come up with._

 _She comes like the thunderclap and leaves like the wind each time. With a torch inside of her pure soul, or a large structured crystal, or a shining ball shaped by the glow of the halo with powers that no one else can see. Emitting the very same pure powers they once shared into the sword to his heart by her own two hands, entrusting the imagery of herself to him who'd then be able to see herself reflected in two mirrors._

 _She was... He tries to find the word without anyone else's words to clue it in, then he realizes. He jolts from one of his classmates yelling jokingly at him about sleeping with the book on his face, he grunts in annoyance and lays the book on his desk then zones out once more, only to later get caught staring up at the ceiling lost in thought of his emotions being a complicated maze or some jigsaw puzzle._

 _She comes at the most desperate moments. She goes at the moments where he wanted her most._

* * *

He needs her.

* * *

 **(** _But life never asks you what you want_  
 _It's just gonna have its way_  
 _Sometimes it doesn't give like it takes_ **)**

Ten weeks passes.

Ichigo had been let out of the infirmary on the fifteenth day, luckily was able to exchange a talk with his father before he hightails out of Soul Society. (He suspects he was staying with the Shiba family until Ichigo wakes up and gets released.)

His father didn't say it outright, but Ichigo knows from the way Isshin carefully chose his words when speaking, then treated their parting as a good-bye.

He hears more complaints from Renji about souls applying for the shinigami academy at much greater numbers than before and how much busier they would be training new recruits than rebuilding, he bows his head and shuts out the idea before it gets planted; is then thankful later to not latch onto false hope.

Rukia says the Gotei Thirteen will grow again in no time with all the applicants, as recent responsibilities have been more of a burden now with so few members surviving to properly carry them out in even distribution. ( No wonder they've been so busy. ) He dared not consider it.

The past eight weeks goes from disorienting to ugly rotten to bitter hell.

On the fifth week, the captain-commander breaks the news to him.

The heart in his soul sinks, and brings him to his knees and palms; despair scraping the sky from within—only he does not yell in anguish but acceptance settles in far too quickly for his comfort.

After all, it is easier to let it fall apart than to keep holding it together.

The sunken heart never recovered.

* * *

 **(** _If I never see your face_  
 _If wings take you away from me_  
 _And tomorrow never happens, baby_  
 _If the world comes tumbling down_  
 _And crumbles all around us_  
 _Fate turns cruel_  
 _You're on your knees_  
 _So desperate for one truth_ **)**

Her eyes show pleading that she does not verbalize as a way to keep her own promises to herself, and to him, for whenever he is ready to talk.

He is losing his spiritual powers, again.

The reishi particles in the air were able to keep his being stable for a short while and slow down the spiritual pressure loss by a considerable amount, but not for long until it breaks his soul down if he stays any longer.

Back then... While on the edge of his world going black, a loud voice entered his ears — a strong spark of hope was set aflame in his chest, the feeling of being at ease erupted from the center to every crook of his body like healing water — but only lasted a few seconds 'til _he_ began to try appearing as a deformed blob before his very petrified eyes. Hot fear yanked at his aching ribs like the once chain of fate; claws of ugly emotion strangling him by his heart to _get up_. To _finish_ it.

With no other option, he did without much thought—that he must save, must protect, must sacrifice.

And now he hates himself for it.

For life to be his ( and hers ) worst betrayal, and betrayals are only when it is unseen from the start - it was... ironic considering Ichigo was supposed to represent _Life_.

He speaks to her now—how he shall be going now, catch up on his high school studies, graduate with the rest of his classmates, and...

Rukia's head hangs low, bangs shadow over her near close-lidded eyes, arms firmly in place in front of her; silence befalls them for longer than their farewell in the world of the living, she hears a sigh of resignation and her upper lip quivers, her jaw would have been shaking had she not grit her teeth to keep composure.

It is unspoken and needlessly so, because he knows what Rukia must be wishing for right now on her mind, and he had her promise him prior.

There won't be a third time, despite what they say about the third time's being the charm.

No, that wasn't the other truth she was silently seeking, the one of confirmation.

The cheeky response, 'see you again, Rukia,' was on the tip of his tongue to say, but so was 'good-bye' — a word he never has and never wanted to say. So was _those_ words which he deems too painful that would leave Rukia completely shattered from her current state of forcing a bittersweet smile just for him now that she's looking back up at him and has given her response.

It has become scary now how easy it is for him to fake a smile to the point of returning the **(** _shattering_ **)** deceiving **(** _empty_ **)** bittersweet **(** _broken_ **)** smile he then gives her before turning to run through the senkaimon.

He does not tell her.

To spare her.

 **(** Know that I have loved you. **)**


End file.
